
Class ^ J 
Book_lE.JA 



RECONSTRUCTION, 



SPEECH 



OP 



HON. HALBEUT E. PAINE, 

OF WISCONSIN, 

i IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY IG, 1868. 



The House having under consideration the bill 
' R. No. 4.j0) additional and supplemental to an 
•:■■ entitled "An act to provide for the more efficient 
• .eminent of the rebel States," passed March 2, 

iMJr — 

Mr. PAINE said : 

Mr. Speaker: The President -will, of course, 
rrto this bill. He will probably give us the 
s\ne reasons which he has so often given ns 
forlvetoing and opposing our reconstruction 
( iB. He will denounce, as in his Texas proc- 
] niation of August 20, 18G6, and in his veto 
f our last reconstruction bill, and in his last 

n al message he denounced this legislation, 

ii consistent with the declaration made at 
. Id commencement of the rebellion by both 
i louses of Congress, that the war was not — 

"Waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, 
lor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor 
. irp i?'5 of overthrfiwins or interfering with the 
iihU '.'T established institutions of those States, but 
y deiiJid and maintain thosupremacy of the Consti- 
I'Uou ;md all laws mado in pursuance thereof, and 
•, pr"-!' eve the Union with all the dignity, equality, 
iA rgi^tg of the several States unimpaired, and that 
i-iSO! !. .^is these objects ' wore' accomplished the war 
ogh' to' ceaae." 

T'-.'^-b resolutioa was adopted by the Senate 

.n motion of Mr. Johnson himself on the 2.jth 

ii'/ofJuly, 1861. A similar resolution had 

'ten adopted by this House on the 22d of the 

jn month. The war had just commenced ; 

jiators and Representatives were staggering 

der the first thunderbolt of the rebellion. 

I at once they saw the country swept by the 

e of civil war. They knew not how soon all 

uld go to the bottom. They knew not how 

.any traitors were among the crew. In agony, 

, rnost in despair, they groped for moans and 

leasures to save or help their imperiled coun- 

.ryi As drowning men, they caught at straws. 

;lt vould not have been surprising if they had 

Ibo accepted from Mr. Johnson a resolution 

vlch might possibly have involved them in 

luonsisteucy at a later stage of the struggle. 



But fortunately they did not become involved 
in any such inconsistency. We may well b6 
amazed that they did not. For when nations 
embark in war they cease to be their own mas- 
ters. They may commence it, olfensively or 
defensively, and at its commencement may 
solemnly declare its character and purpose, 
but when it is once begun the resistless cur- 
rent of events sweeps away like sand-heaps their 
solemn declarations, and God only knows how 
soon or how often the character and issues of 
the struggle may change, into what unknown 
seas of strife it may drift, or what its end may 
be. It might have been true that a resolution 
which correctly set forth the character and 
issues of the war at the outset would fail to 
give a correct statement of its character and 
issues at its close ; for in a war involving mil- 
lions of comljatants, covering a continent and 
raging through a period of four years, what 
man or hundred men or thousand men could 
assume to determine the course of its stupen- 
dous events, rushing upon one another with tha 
speed of the lightning and the confusion of the 
whirlwind? What man or thousand men would 
be able to regulate its issues, shape its character, 
or fix its limit V It might well be that in a war 
of such proportions measures which at the out- 
set appeared unnecessary to the accomplish- 
ment of the grand objects of the struggle would 
be shown in the progress of events to bo abso- 
lutely essential to success. In such a case 
what patriot would say that a mere expression 
of opinion at its commencement by two hun- 
dred of its citizens should be permitted to 
inure to the ruin of the Ilopublic ? Wiiy, sir, 
if such a mistake had been made in the form 
of a statute law it would simply have been our 
duty to rei)eal it and save the nation. But 
this resolution never took the form of law ; it 
was not even a joint resolution : It was not even 
a concurrent resolution. The whole of it 
was that the two Houses of Congress adopted, 



Ti4 



2 



each on its own responsibility, substantially 
the same resolution. It was, therefore, only 
the expression of the opinion of some two hun- 
dred citizens of the United States. If it had 
been a law or joint resolution, and had pro- 
claimed issues which, although then actually 
subsisting, were subsequently changed by the 
overwhelming tide of war, would it not have 
been the part of statesmen and patriots to 
repeal the law or resolution ? Would it not 
have been for enemies of the Republic to insist 
that the law or resolution should stand unre- 
pealed, a permanent obstacle to reconstruc- 
tion and peace? Could we have absolved our- 
selves from our duty to save the Republic, to 
maintain the Constitution, and preserve the 
Union by the plea that we had promised rebels 
or anybody else not to do it? 

But, sir, it happened in this case that what 
these Senators and Representatives declared 
to be the purpose of the war in the beginning 
continued to be the purpose of the war at the 
end. I repeat that it would not have been 
etrange if this purpose had changed; and if it 
had changed this nation would not have been 
in honor bound to die rather than repeal the 
law ; still less would it have been bound to die 
rather than disregard a j^aper manifesto of two 
hundred of its citizens. 

Sir, the whole nation was ready to declare 
at the outset that the war was not waged for 
the purpose of emancipating the blacks ; and 
it was true, for not one soldier in ten entered 
the Army for that specific purpose. Now, 
suppose that the nation had in some form put 
that declaration on record, as did Mr. John- 
eon's Secretary of State, and afterward in the 
agony of the struggle had found that it must 
either free and arm the blacks or perish, where 
is the patriot who will say that it was the duty 
of the nation to withhold freedom and the bay- 
onet from the blacks and lie down and die ? 
Suppose that the Government had at the com- 
mencement of the war or at any stage of its 
progress solemnly declared that it was not the 
object of the Government to secure suffrage 
to the blacks in the rebel States and yet had 
afterward reached the conviction that in order 
to save the Republic it was necessary to give 
not only freedom and the bayonet but also the 
ballot to the blacks, where is the patriot to stand 
up and say that it would be the duty of the 
Republic to flounder forever upon a sea of 
half-suppressed rebellion rather than enfran- 
chise the blacks because their enfranchise- 
ment had not been the original object of the 
war notwithstanding it appeared to be a meas- 
ure absolutely essential to the accomplishment 
of that object? 

Consistency is, indeed, a jewel. But consist- 
ency requires no nation to stand upon a decla- 
ration of fact at the end of a war v.'hich is then 
false, though true at the beginning. Consist- 
ency does not require a nation to reject a meas- 



ure found necessary as the means of attainin 
the grand oljject of a war because such measur 
was not at first its object. 

Let us recur, sir, to the precise language ol 
this resolution. First, it is declared that "th 
war is not waged on our part in a spirit of op' 
pression." No impartial judge who shall cart 
full}' read the history of this war, commencing 
with the indignities and outrages heaped upori 
northern patriots by southern traitors for twentl 
years in the Halls of Congress, and ia everj' 
part of the Republic, from the St. Lawrence ti^ 
the Rio Grande, and ending in the horrors ot/ 
Fort Pillow, Andersonville, and New Orleans/ 
will venture to charge us with a spirit of op- \ 
pression. Until we were actually driven to ) 
the wall by rebel atrocities was it not the cease- ^ 
less jeer of southern rebels that northern men I 
were utterly destitute of even spirit enough to 
vindicate their own manhood? Oppression! 
Sir, pusillanimity would have been the appro- 
priate word but for the iron virtues which rebel 
outrages finally forged out of our yielding 
natures. There has been no spirit of oppres- 
sion on our part at the commencement of the 
war, during its progress, or since its rVise. 
Impartial history will record, as candi 1 r., ^n 
throughout Christendom will admit, tha, i •* ,r 
were such rebels treated with such aiu; 'iig 
tenderness when overcome. In the cau. oi 
liberty John Brown and his associates peri- .?»' 
on the scaffold for treason to the State of 'i ■ 
ginia. No scaflbld has yet arisen for or c*^ 
the leaders of those who in the interest o P 
most merciless bondage ever known on i rt^'' 
and in modes of unparallele'd atrocity pe v-^° 
trated treason against the American Uuiv 

It is next declared that the war wa.- lu' 
waged on our part ''for any purpose^ of oon 
quest or subjugation." This proposition h£i 
also been, from the beginning of the war to i'i 
end, in letter and in spirit true. Conquestanl 
subjugation were never our objects. , Tli(-t 
became necessary means for the accoihipi'ii- 
ment of our grand object, the maintenJam .or" 
the Union and the Constitution, and %i t led 
them as means and thus only. Nor •- ■ ,i 
expressed or implied in this resolution lat 
the nation ought not to or would not res* to 
such measures for the accomplishment ot ibe 
great purpose of the war. It turned out li^i 
the Republic could be saved only by con' ic- 
ing the rebel armies and subjugating the oi- 
federacy. If this sentiment of the resoU o.\ 
instead of being a mere opinion of indivi; al*. 
had been an absolute covenant of the Am r ' c:. i 
people, of perfect obligation, never to jiy 
conquest or subjugation a purpose of th; .■.-.» 
neither consistency nor good faith woul r-'- 
quire the nation to die or be forever rack • b" 
revolutions rather than use these mea -f 
when necessary for the accomplishment i h ■■ 
real object and purpose of the war, the f ■; i - 
tion of the country, inasmuch as this e>- 






B 



lution in fact contained no pledge tn cover the 
future exigencies of tlio gigantic struggle, but 
only a statement of a state of tilings then ex- 
isting, it is hard to regard with patience an 
attempt to perpetuate rebel State sovereignty 
upon such a lllmsy pretext. 

It is next averted that the war was not 
waged on our part _" for the purpose of over- 
throwing or interfering with the rights or estab- 
lished institutions of those States." What 
institutions? Of course, slavery lirst and fore- 
most. Does the President, notwithstanding all 
he said and did as emancipator of Tennessee, 
insist that by this expression we were bound 
at the end of the war to leave intact slavery as 
well as the rebel State governments? It is 
true that we did not enter upon the war with a 
purpose of abolishing slavery or interfering 
with the semi- sovereign powers of those States. 
But it is equally true that this resolution 
involved no pledge that if the fiei-y flood of 
war should ever sweep them away, we would 
instantly restore them ; it contained no pledge, 
express or implied, that if at any time the 
exigencies of the struggle should demand it, 
we would not ourselves de^itroy slavery and 
repudiate the rebel State governments. On 
this point, as on the others, the resolution only 
purported to set forth a statement of facts then 
existing; it gave no pledge of future conduct. 
If it had contained such a pledge it would have 
bound nobody except as a paper manifesto of 
a handful out of millions of citizens of the 
Republic. 

It is finally asserted that the war v/as waged 
"to maintain and defend the supremacy of tlie 
Constitution and all laws made in pursuance 
thereof, and to preserve the Union with all the 
dignity, equality, and rights of the several 
States unimpaired;" and that "as soon as these 
objects" were " accomplished the war ought to 
cease." The President seems to perceive in 
this clause abundant reason for denouncing 
our repudiation of his provisional governments. 
I will not stop to discuss the logic or consist- 
ency which can justify the abolition of seven 
existing State governments by executive proc- 
lamations and the substitution therefor of mere 
creatures of the executive will, and can at the 
same instant denounce us for repudiating — not 
the State governments which existed at the 
capture of the rebel armies, for the President 
had already extinguished them — but the non- 
descript governments which he himself had set 
up in their stead. Certainly if this resolution 
was obligatory upon anybody it was obligatory 
upon its author, now President of the United 
States. 

To maintain the supremacy of the Constitu- 
tion and laws, and to preserve the Union with 
all the dignity, equality, and rights of the 
States unimpaired, was at the beginning of the 
war, ever since has been, and nt)w is, our 
object and purpose. It certainly has not been 



our purpose to justify or uphold the crimes of 
particular States at the cost of the rx'stcnce 
of the nation and the Constitution. It has not 
been our purpose to sacriflce the Union and 
the Constitution in order to shield particular 
States from the consequences of their owa 
crimes. It has not been our purpose to per- 
petuate by force the State existence of a par- 
ticular community struggling to throw itoff. It 
has not been our purpose to force back upon 
any jjarticular peo])le a State cxistcuice under 
the Constitution which they may have inso- 
lently thrown off. It has not been our purpose 
to enable eleven rebel States to trample under 
foot the dignity, equality, and rights of twenty- 
five. It was not our purpose so to use the mili- 
tary resources of the country that those eleven 
States, after the sacrifice of a million of loyal 
men and billions of treasure, could assume at 
once such an attitude of Slate sovereignty aa 
would enable them to commence the accumu- 
lation of resources for a repetition of their 
treason. It was not our purpose to reward 
crime by arresting from loyal and faithful States 
their undisputed, undoubted rights, and heap- 
ing upon traitor States such privileges and im- 
munities as are not conferred by the Constitu- 
tion even upon loyal States. No, sir ; such 
v/as not our object. It was our purpose so to 
wage the war that the dignity, equality, and 
rights of all the States should for all coming 
time be placed upon their true solid constitu- 
tional ground. This could only be accom- 
plished by vindicating the supremacy of the 
Constitution and the sanctity of the Union. 
We knew then, as v/e know iu)w, tliat to per- 
mit particular States to repudiate the Consti- 
tution and destroy the Union was not tiie true 
way to preserve the dignity and rights of the 
States under the Constitution. We knew that 
if the supremacy of the Constitution and the 
integrity of the Union could be maintained, 
then and then only would the rights and dignity 
and equality of the States be preserved, what- 
ever temporary penalties particidar States 
might pay for their attempts to subvert them. 
Ordinary statutes, enacted for the punish- 
ment of crime, aim to protect the rights of 
individuals. Can it be said that this object is 
disregarded when the man who attempts mur- 
der is arrested and temporarily deprived of hia 
weapons, his liberty, or his vote? llow else can 
you protect the rights of the rest of the world? 
How can you protect the rights even of the 
criminal himself except by vindicating the 
majesty of the law? If the law is set at naught 
not only are the rights of all other men imper- 
illed but even his also. For when his disal^iiity 
shall 1)0 remov(;d his restoreil rights will bo 
valuable to him still. IJut thi>y will perish 
with the law. It was so with the rebels. It 
was absolutely inevitable that wo should tem- 
porarily delay the restoration of their State 
governments or see the Union either jicrlsh at 



once or tremble, for how long a time God only 
knows, on a smouldering volcano of revolu- 
tion. In that event the rights — the qualified 
sovereignty guarantied by the Constitution to 
the States — woiald have been of no value to 
them or to us. But by vindicating the majesty 
and sanctity of the Union and the Constitu- 
tion against all enemies, whether individuals 
or States, we have preserved and perpetuated 
these rights not only to ourselves but alsC to 
the rebels, and the day will come when they 
will thank God that we have enforced a policy 
which, though to them a temporary annoyance, 
will prove even to them a permanent blessing ; 
the time may come when they will rejoice that 
we have reared a bulwark of national strength 
which they can interpose between their own 
rights and threatened wrongs from other States. 
The President, in his annual message, de- 
nounces our reconstruction legislation as unau- 
thorized by the Federal Constitution. We 
shall doubtless hear the same denunciations in 
his coming veto. I regret that a remark of the 
ablest champion of freedom on this floor has 
been misconstrued into acquiescence in the 
justice of this charge. When the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] arose to 
move the previous question on the passage of 
our amendatory reconstruction bill over the 
President's veto on the 20th day of last July, 
he said : 

"The President starts by asserting what, if true, 
makes out all the rest of his argument legitimately. 
He says that the Constitution of the United States is 
theoretically operative in the conquered southern 
States. If that were true then all we have been doing 
is rank usurpation, and all he has been doing is legit- 
imate action. I deny that the Constitution is theo- 
retically or actually in operation in any one of those 
States any more than it is in a Territory." 

This statement occasioned a profound sen- 
sation in this House and throughout the coun- 
trj'. ' ' Any more than it is in a Territory. ' ' Un- 
fortunately too many, both here and elsewhere, 
overlooked or forgot the qualification contained 
in these words. The gentleman did not then 
assert that the Constitution was wholly inoper- 
ative in those rebellious districts. He denied 
that it was operative there otherwise than in the 
Territories, which was tantamount to denying 
that it was in operation there as in the recog- 
nized States of the Republic. In this almost 
all loyal men in the country will agree with 
him. But this memorable speech has been 
tortured into a denial that the Federal Consti- 
tution was operative at all in those districts. 
It has been an overflowing fountain of aid and 
comfort to the foes of these reconstruction 
measures, and of sorrow and chagrin to their 
friends. If he had declared that the Consti- 
tution had no operation at all in those districts 
I could not have acquiesced in the declaration 
any more than in the proposition that the Con- 
stitution has no operation at all in the Territo- 
ries. But if the Constitution is in operation in 



those districts as in the States I do not think 
it follows that the President's policy was legiti- 
mate action, although it certainly does follow 
that ours was rank usurpation. The Presi- 
dent's course would be in that case no less a 
usurpation than our own. For neither the 
President nor the Congress has a right to deal 
with States as they have dealt with these dis- 
tricts. 

If, however, the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania had asserted that the admission that the 
Constitution was operative at all in those dis- 
tricts involved the admission that the Pres- 
ident's course was legitimate action and ours 
rank usurpation, then would the truth have 
been, I think, exactly the reverse of his prop- 
osition. For while it is very clear to my mind 
that if these districts sustained under the Con- 
stitution the relation of Territories, whether 
conquered or not conquered, the President's 
course was rank usurpation, it is equally clear 
that if they were in no sense under the Consti- 
tution it is not for us to denounce the action 
of the President as rank usurpation. I should 
be glad to know by what law we are to try his 
official acts in the premises unless by the Con- 
stitution of the United States. If these dis- 
tricts are not subject to but outside of the Con- 
stitution I should be glad to know by what 
rule the powers and functions of government 
to be exercised in this case are to be distrib- 
uted among its several executive, judicial, 
and legislative branches. Who is to say that 
this or that act performed by one of the de- 
partments of the Ooverninent is an invasion of 
another, a usurpation of anything or against 
anything, if such act is not to be tested by the 
Federal Constitution? Where else than in that 
Constitution do you read that Congress shall 
wield the legislative power of the nation '! If 
the work of reconstruction lies outside of it, 
who can say what the President or Congress 
or the Supreme Court may or maj' not do in 
the premises? Which Department can pre- 
sume to circumscribe the functions or powers 
of another? Will it be said that under the law 
of nations, without any constitution, all govern- 
mental power in this Republic, executive and 
judicial, as well as legislative, would i-eside in 
Congress? Show me, sir, the page of tlie law 
of nations upon which any sucii doctrine as 
that is written. Certainly it is for this law of 
nations to indicate what our Kepul^Hc, as one 
of tlie sovereign Powers of the world, maypr 
may not do. But never can that law be per- 
mitted to determine the interior distribution 
of sovereign powers and functions among 
the several departments of any government. 
It nowise concerns the law of nations whether 
these powers are centered in an absolute mon- 
arch or more or less distributed, as in a con- 
stitutional monarchy or republic. Tried by the 
law of nations, then, the President's career in 
the lately rebellious States is no usurpation aa 



against Congress. It is not for that law to de- 
cide between him and us. In thee5'e of that law 
it is a matter of absolute indifference whether 
he exercises our powers or we exercise his, or 
the Supreme Court usurps the whole. 

If, therefore, the gentleman from Pennsjd- 
vania had shown that the Constitution had 
actually nothing to do with these communi- 
ties, instead of convicting he would have honor- 
ably acquitted the President of usurpation ; he 
would have sounded the signal for a triangular 
contest between the several departments of the 
Government for the controlof these districts. If 
he is of the opinion that such a doctrine would, 
to use his own words, render reconstruction as 
easy as any problem in Euclid I humbly dif- 
fer with him. I think the result of such a tri- 
angular squabble would be that the base and 
the hypothenuse would get completely wrecked 
■while the perpendicular would sweep triumph- 
antly around the circie. But if he meant, what 
his language obviously imports, that the Con- 
stitution was neither wholly inoperative in those 
districts nor operative there as in States, but 
as in Territories and only as in Territories, 
then, indeed, does his doctrine remove all diffi- 
culties from the case. For whether you i-egard 
them as sustaining to the Constitution a rela- 
tion analogous to that of mere Territories, or 
the relation of conquered Territories, you are 
alike free from embarrassment. If you treat 
them as Territories subject to the Constitution, 
your Constitution shows by what departments 
respectively the regulations for their govern- 
ment are to be framed and administered, and 
what all of these departments together may do. 
If you regard them as conquests, the law of 
nations shows what the nation may do in the 
premises, and the Constitution shows by what 
particular departments of the Government its 
several powers are to be exercised, yrhether 
you call them, then, mere Territories or con- 
quests, or both at once, you find that in either 
character they fall into the hands of Congress, 
the legislative department of the Government, 
and that all the powers of reconstruction spring- 
ing from both of these relations vest in Con- 
gress, which may at its option exercise one 
class or the other, or both, in the reconstruc- 
tion of the lately rebellious States. 

The President assails us for declaring in our 
military bill that these governments are not 
legal and at the same time authorizing the dis- 
trict commanders to use them. But there is 
no ground for any such charge. We found 
there certain political machines in operation 
which the President had manufactured by his 
seven memorable proclamations, and which he 
called State governments. And the question 
considered by the Committee on Reconstruc- 
tion, and afterward by the House, was whether 
we should at once annihilate these machines 
or so legislate that the district commanders 
could lawfully make use of whatever, if any- 



thing, they might find useful in them. If we 
had annihilated them we should have compelled 
each district commander to appoint without 
delay thousands of officers and to frame entire 
systems of general and local laws. This would 
have involved immense labor upon details 
which, if it could possibly have been per- 
formed at all, could only have been performed 
at the sacrifice of other duties which could 
neither be delegated nor deferred. Nor could 
the district commanders have appointed thou- 
sands of officers at once in those districts, with- 
out making many appointments of very bad 
men whom they would upon trial have found 
it necessary to remove. 

AVe decided, therefore, to permit the district 
commanders to use these officers and systems 
of laws, or not to use them, as they saw fit, 
making it their duty to remove all who should 
be disloyal to the Government or hinder the 
work of reconstruction. We framed such a 
law that these systems and officers, while so 
used, were made valid and legal. But this 
validity springs altogether from the act of Con- 
gress. It is derived from no State law, from 
no presidential act or proclamation. These 
officers and systems when so used are not State 
officers nor State governments nor State laws, 
but the creatures and temporai-y agents of the 
national Government. During the short time 
that reconstruction was to be in the hands of 
the district commanders it was necessary that 
peace and order should be maintained by the 
use of some system of rules and regulations 
and by the employment of officers of some kind 
to enforce them. We found governments, laws, 
and officers there in actual though unauthor- 
ized existence. We provided that the district 
commanders might use such oi them as they 
should find useful, and being so used they are 
made valid and lawful by act of Congress. 

The charge of inconsistency therefore falls 
to the ground. It is true that Congress has 
declared these governments illegal as State 
governments, but it is not true that Congress 
attempts to administer them as State govern- 
ments, whether legal or illegal. In its hands 
they are machines which as emanations of 
State sovereignty or executive usurpation had 
no legality or validity, but which while per- 
mitted by the district commanders or by Con- 
gress to exist stand as its own adopted means 
of reconstruction upon Federal law duly and 
constitutionally enacted. 

The President is quite correct when he says 
in his last veto message that it would be — 

"A novel spectacle if Congress should attempt to 
carry on a icpal State eoverumcnt by tbo agency of 
its own officers." 

Congress never did. I trust, sir, Congress 
never will attempt to carry on a legal Siute 
government by the agency of its own officers. 
But, sir. there would be no novelty in sucli an 
attempt on the part of the President. He now 



6 



insists that these communities were, when their 
armies were captured, just as truly and com- 
pletely States, and their governments just as 
truly and completely State governments as ever. 
And yet in May, June, and July, 18G0, he act- 
ually appointed seven governors to carry on 
these legal State governments, having removed 
ihose the rebels had chosen, and thenceforth 
actually did carry on these legal State govern- 
ments, as he called them, by the agency of his 
own officers, the governors so appointed. 

The President, in the same veto message, 
says : 

"It is yet more strange that Congresa attempts to 
sustain and carry ou au illegal State government by 
the same Federal agency." 

A more careful examination of the act would 
have shown him that Congress did not attempt 
to carry them on as State governments, whether 
legal or illegal. Congress has not attempted, 
1 trust will not attempt, so indefensible an act. 
But such an attempt on the part of the Presi- 
dent would not be strange ; for two years ago 
he proclaimed these State governments — now 
so sacred in his eyes — so illegal as to be utter 
nullities, and yet proceeded to carry them on 
by the agency of governors of his own appoint- 
ment. No, sir, we have not attempted to carry 
on illegal State governments by Federal agen- 
cies as State governments. We found in actual 
existence illegal governments which had been 
substituted by Andrew Johnson for other ille- 
gal governments Avhich he had found in actual 
existence ; and such parts of these — such of 
their laws and officers as we have* found conven- 
ient to our hands — we have taken hold of and 
legalized by Federal statute, and used, not as 
State governments. State laws, or State offi- 
cers, but as temporary Federal agencies for the 
reconstruction of the rebel St#,tes. 

And these State governments being illegal 
wo could not without a gross violation of duty 
revive them instantaneously in the hands of their 
rebel administrators. Our duty to the Republic, 
yet rocking on a bloody sea of suppressed rebel- 
lion, beneath whose waves lay lost such price- 
less treasures of life and gold, forbade it. Our 
duty to the soldiers, both the dead and the liv- 
ing, forbade it. Our duty to the stern men and 
tearl'ul women who sent them forth to the bat- 
tle and followed them with their benedictions 
and prayers forbade it. Our duty to those 
southern patriots who bore aloft unsullied the 
fliig of heaven while they themselves walked in 
the infernal fires of southern treason, forbade it. 
Our duty to the faithful blacks who demanded 
that their fidelity to the Union should not drag 
them down into unwonted torments forbade it. 
Our duty to the human race, for whom we bore 
the ark of the covenant of human freedom, for- 
bade it. Nay, sir, our duty to the rebels them- 
selves and to their posterity, whose destiny is 
bound up with ours and our commou country's, 
forbade it. If we had done so, God who smote 



us with war and gave us the victory that sla- 
very might die and the nation live, would have 
cursed us for our cowardly bequest of wars and 
woes to future generations. 

The President complains that we have 
stripped him of many of his constitutional pre- 
rogatives while he still remains bound by all 
his constitutional responsibilities ; that we 
deprive him of the power to appoint officers, 
andyethold him to the correlative duty of taking 
care that the laws are faithfully executed. It 
is not to be denied, sir, that his conduct has 
compelled us to withdraw temporarily from the 
President powers with which, in the days of 
Washington and Lincoln, nay, even in the days 
of Fillmore and Tyler, the people were content 
to intrust him. But in this we have not vio- 
lated the Constitution. The President errs 
when he supposes that the duty to see that the 
laws are executed, and the power to choose and 
control officers are coextensive or inseparable. 
For, while the Constitution does make it his 
duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed, 
it does not empower him to appoint a single 
officer. He shares that power with the Senate. 
He may nominate himself, but he can only 
appoint by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate. And yet, Mr. Speaker, tha Con- 
stitution does not require the Senate any more 
than the House to see that the laws are faith- 
fully executed. Now, this constitutional duty 
of the President is fully performed when ho 
uses such means as the law provides for com- 
pelling officers duly appointed to execute laws 
duly enacted. 

In his proclamation, that he '•' can never give 
his assent to be made responsible for the faith- 
ful execution of laws and at the same time 
surrender that trust and the powers which ac- 
company it," meaning the appointing power, 
he utterly ovei'looks the fact that the Constitu- 
tion gives this power not to the President alone, 
but to the President and Senate, or, at the op- 
tion of Congress, to the heads of Departments 
and the courts. In truth nine tenths of all the 
officers are appointed by the heads of Depart- 
ments and by the courts without the slightest 
possibility of interference by the President. 
Does this relieve him of nine tenths of his 
responsibility? Certainly it does if there is 
anything in his argument. But there is noth- 
ing in his argument. The Constitution in no 
way connects the power of appointment with 
the duty to see that the laws are faithfully 
executed. The President is just as solemnly 
bound to take care that the laws are faithfully 
executed by the ninety officers appointed by 
the courts or heads of Departments aa by the 
ten appointed by himself. In either case he 
does his whole duty when he sees that all who 
neglect to execute the laws are dealt with 
according to the law. 

The President observes in his last veto mes- 
sage that " another ground on which our recou- 



structiou acts are defended is this : that these 



ten States are conquerciterritory and their citi- 
zens conquered people.' He denies this very 
emphaticuUv, but gives no reasons. He con- 
tents himself with the bald assertion that the 
United States holds not a foot of land in those 
regions by conquest except such as may have 
belonged to the Federal Government. It might 
be sulliclent to meet assertion with counter 
assertion, but the error lies so near the surface 
that its exposure will necessitate but a mo- 
ment's delay. The Supreme Court in the prize 
cases decided that the late war of the rebellion 
had " such character and magnitude as to give 
the United States the same rights and powers 
which they might exercise in the case of a 
national or foreign war. " I belie ve these cases 
were reported and this syllabus drawn by the 
same hand which drew the President's last veto 
message. The opinion of the court contains 
these words : 

" It is not necessary that the independence of the 
revolted province or State bo acknowledged in order 
to constitute it a party belligerent in a war according 
to the law of nations." * * * * "'^'he 
law of nations is also called the law of nature; it is 
founded on the common consent as well as the com- 
mon sense of the world. It contains no such anom- 
alous doctrine as that which this court are now for 
the iirst time, desired to pronounce, to wit: that 
insurgents who have risen in rebellion against their 
sovereign, expelled her courts, established arevolu- 
tion.iry government, organized armies, and com- 
menced hostilities, are not enemies, because they are 
traitors; and a war levied ou the Governrueiit by 
traitors in order to dismember and destroy it is not 
a war, because it is an ' insurrection.' It is a propo- 
sition never doubted that the belligerent party who 
claims to be sovereign may exercise both belligerent 
and sovereign rights." 

The President speahs of the Supreme Court 
as "that august tribunal," and evinces the 
deepest reverence for opinions of that court, 
even when only gathered by far-fetched infer- 
ence from immaterial acts of mere routine. 
Let him not, then, treat with contempt this care- 
fully expressed opinion. For it is so sound 
and wise that he will in vain appeal from it 
either to the American people or to Christen- 
dom, either to the present generation or to 
posterity. Does the President mean that in 
the late war the United States had not the 
same rights and powers which they would have 
had in a war against a foreign enemy as the 
Supreme Court decided? If they had does he 
mean that the right to conquer the rebels was 
not one of them, or does he mean that we did 
not, in fact, conquer thein? If he admits that 
we had a right to conquer them and did con- 
quer them, does he mean that conquest in war 
does not give the conqueror the right to dis- 
pose of the conquered, subject to no limita- 
tions except those of humanity, of which he is 
sole judge? The meaning of the President is 
obscure. But if he asserts that in the late war 
we had not belligerent rights, I appeal from 
him to the undisputed doctrine of all the teach- 
ers of international law recognized and en- 



forced by our Supreme Court in the prize cases. 
If he asserts that the right of conquest is not 
a belligerent right, I appeal from him to that 
august tribunal of public teachers, who have 
written a contrary doctrim; upon the tables of 
international law. If he means tliat conquest 
does not give the rights which we have e.xer- 
ciscd in these reconstruction acts, all of them 
to their utmost verge, 1 appeal from him to the 
same august tribunal. If he means that v.-c 
have not conquered the rebels in fact, I appeal 
from him to Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman. 

Another reason which the President will 
probably give for his veto of this bill will be 
one which long ago became threadbare in his 
hands. He will, I suppose, inform us that we 
pretended to wage this war for the preservation 
of the Union ; that the measures of reconstruc- 
tion which we have adopted suppose the rebels 
to be out of the Union, and so our war has been 
a failure. Well, sir, I frankly admit that if we 
had waged this defensive war against the rebel- 
lion to compel these districts to enjoy the rights 
and privileges of States of the Union it would 
have been a most wretched failure. But, sir, 
we waged the war not to^arce rebels to enjoy 
privileges but to force them to perform duties. 
We waged it to compel obedience to the na- 
tional Constitution and laws and allegiance to 
the national Union, not to force them to 
retain the forms or enjoy the rights and privi- 
leges of State governments against their will. 
If, sir, it were true that nobody could owe alle- 
giance to the Union or obedience to the Con- 
stitution except citizens of regularly organized 
States, then indeed was the war a failure. But 
this is not true. The citizens of Colorado and 
Dakota and South Carolina and Alabama are 
just as certainly to-day subject to the national 
Constitution and within the American Union 
as are those of Wisconsin and Indiana. And 
the only reason why South Carolina and Ala- 
bama are to-day subject to the Constitution 
and in the Union is that the war was success- 
ful, and by the bayonet we forced them into 
.that condition. 

But, sir, we have not been stupid enough to 
expend so much of life and treasure to force 
them to enjoy any rights or privileges, whether 
of State semi-sovereignty or of any other kind. 
That concerned them vastly more than it con- 
cerned us. We were willing they should enjoy 
them; nay, we preferred that. But, sir, we 
never thought of fighting to enforce it. Our 
object was not, like that of our friends on the 
other side, to conduct the war in sucii a way as 
to preserve carefully to the rebels while fight- 
ting and when conquered all their States 
rights, privileges, organizations, and power in 
the Federal Government, so that as soon as 
conquered they might with the help of their 
northern friends rule again the nation they had 
failed to ruin, and as soon as possible there- 
after be prepared by the accumulation of fresh 






8 



resources, again to attempt the overthrow of 
the Union and the Constitution. We fought 
to save the nation, to save the constitutional 
government under which it exists, with its sys- 
tem of national, State, municipal, and individ- 
al rights fully and finally vindicated. Across 
our track we found the confederacy and the 
rebel State governments, and we smote it and 
them and suved the nation. 

Mr. Speaker, the first and second great pro- 
visions of this legislation declare the southern 
governments illegal as State governments and 
place these districts under military power. Its 
third great feature is that it secures the right 
of suffrage to the colored citizens of the Repub- 
lic. This also the President opposes. It is 
true that after the reconstruction of State gov- 
ernments shall have been consummated and 
the Federal arm withdrawn it will be theoreti- 
cally possible for the States to disfranchise 
them ; but this will not be a practical possibil- 
ity, for the blacks themselves will have a voice 
and a vote on the question of their own dis- 
franchisement, and for an indefinite period of 
time they will be so strong that it will not be 
done without their consent. Far, far hence 
will be the day when they will give their con- 
sent. Justice demanded this at our hands on 
the day when the dying echoes of the last rebel 
gun were sounding in our ears. But prejudice, 
timid and pusillanimous, stood in our way, as 
did green-eyed jealousy in the way of our Dem- 
ocratic adversaries. At last love of life, more 
potent than duty or prejudice, came to the res- 
cue. We saw that there was no safety, abso- 
lutely no safety, to the nation except upon the 
solid rock of loyal reconstruction ; that to such 
loyal reconstruction loyal majorities were indis- 



pensable; that we could not have majorities of 
white votes, and therefore must either have 
black votes or not hav^ the majorities. Thank 
God, the necessities of the nation thus rose up 
as handmaidens to duty. While future gen- 
erations must award to Congress the honor of 
this great step in human progress, they will 
not fail to record who was the President who 
used the power conferred upon hira by Union 
men to thwart and hinder it. And by this bill 
we entrust the execution of this plan hence- 
forth to the man whose duty it will be, as our 
next Pi-esident, to carry it to a final consum- 
mation. 

These are the main features of our work 
The rest are important, but subordinate. We 
have provided a system of registration intended, 
and, 1 believe, well calculated, to secure legal 
elections. We have prepared an antidote for 
the bane of presidential pardons. We have 
made the iron-clad oath the touchstone of offi- 
cial qualification. We have relieved the Attor- 
ney General from all responsibility and anx- 
iety about the execution of these laws. And 
finally, we have provided that our agents shall 
aim in the execution of the law to carry out 
our real meaning and not by so-called strict 
construction thwart it. 

And there stands our work. Red-handed 
rebels cannot now resist it. Their northern 
allies will be powerless to undermine it. Their 
presidential agent will be puzzled to evade it. 
Lukewarm, timid friends will not defeat it. 
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
It will be blessed of God, and through it the 
Republic will be saved and purified, to be per- 
petuated, I hope and trust, to remote genera- 
tions. 



Printed at the Congressional Globe Office. 






